PORT ROYAL, Pa. – Salfordville’s Freddie Rahmer won his first career Port Royal Speedway sprint car main in the All Star Circuit of Champions Night Before The 50 on Friday night at the historic oval.
Rahmer’s win came only after holding off the repeated attempts of Tim Shaffer to steal the victory, worth $5,000.
The race for the 2018 sprint car track title took a cataclysmic turn for point leader Greg Hodnett during the event when he destroyed his car in the first dash race and then was forced to turn to a back up car, which refused to fire for the feature event.
This saw Hodnett forfeit any feature points he may have earned and saw Logan Wagner secure the 2018 track title in what was a drastic turn of events during the affair.
The super late model main saw Danville’s Jeff Rine surge to his fifth win of the season, which in turn secured him a first-ever Port Royal track title.
Shaffer and Rahmer began the 30-lap Night Before The 50 event on the front row but the first start was called back when fourth starter Trey Strarks stopped on the track.
Shaffer, of Aliquippa, zoomed into the lead on the ensuring start with Rahmer and Ryan Smith giving chase.
Shaffer entered traffic on the seventh tour of the event and Rahmer was close enough to strike, which he did on the ninth lap.
The pair raced back to the stripe with Rahmer taking an inches advantage at the line, the equivalent of .008 seconds to be exact.
Seconds later, the caution flag unfurled, bunching the field with Shaffer taking a stab to reclaim the to spot on the restart.
Shaffer got another chance for a turn one dive for the lead on another restart with 12 away but again Rahmer had just enough momentum around the top of the turns to pull back ahead of Shaffer onto the backstretch.
Traffic again became a factor on the 18th lap but again the yellow flag slowed the hectic pace with 10 laps to go. .
The restart saw Shaffer again making a swoop for control only to watch Rahmer jet back around while Ryan Smith and Lance Dewease raced for third and fourth respectively.
The race was one lap from the finish when a final yellow flag appeared that then turned to red for refueling.
And again, Shaffer let it all hang out on the green-white-checker restart only to again come up short, giving Rahmer his first Port Royal win in what has been only limited career starts at the track.
Rahmer’s margin of victory was .830 seconds over Shaffer, Smith, Brock Zearfoss and Dewease.
Sixth through 10th went to Lucas Wolfe, Brian Brown, Paul McMahan, Aaron Reutzel and Logan Wagner.
Reutzel also destroyed a car in a tandem flip with Hodnett in the first dash and he too competed in the main in a back up car, moving from 23rd starting spot up to ninth, to earn the Hard Charger Award.
Heats went to Jared Esh, Reutzel, Robbie Kendall, Rahmer and Anthony Fiore.
Dashes went to Shaffer and Rahmer with Rahmer setting a new four-lap track record in the second dash, posting a time of 1:03.956.
Gio Scelzi won the B Main and set a new 12-lap track record of 3:15.726.
The C Main was won by Mike Wagner.
Lance Dewease set overall fast time with a lap of 15.347 seconds.
There was 46 cars in competition.
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- administrator on Dec 17, 2018
- Article Date: 9/8/2018